On April 10, 2020, dozens of inmates at the Lansing Correctional Facility in Kansas took part in an uprising to protest unsanitary conditions within the prison during the current worldwide health crisis COVID-19 pandemic. Prisoners and their families have been very concerned about the rising numbers of coronavirus infections among prisoners across the whole country. The prisoners at Lansing Correctional Facility busted into offices and broke furniture and windows as a form of protest. At this specific facility many staff and inmates have tested positive for COVID-19.
The Chicano Mexicano Prison Project (CMPP) for many years has exposed the Prison Industrial Complex for what it is – a system is CONCENTRATION CAMPS filled with the poor and working class people. Prisoners are exposed daily to diseases due to overcrowding and poor maintenance by for-profit private prisons, and prisoners continue to be deprived of medical attention, supplies and essential services during this pandemic.
Our people, living daily in these concentration camps, are the most vulnerable right now and the CMPP continues to denounce the current and ongoing conditions that prisoners are forced to live under. The U.S. is a country where there are more prisoners and prisons than anywhere else in the world. Let’s remember that it is not a system that is set up to make us feel “safe or protected”, but one to feed the greedy Prison Industrial Complex which has become a producer of wealth, reaping billions from the backs of our poor and working-class people.
Nationwide protests in response to COVID-19 outbreaks have taken place in several prison facilities, and the CMPP is in complete support of the prisoners’ demands and urgent demands for help during this pandemic. Our struggle is not one just against prisons and those that profit from the incarceration of millions of people, but also against the conditions in society which force too many of our people into criminal behaviors. These protests and uprisings demonstrate the level of unity among all races and the organizing capabilities of oppressed people when they are prepared to fight.
SUPPORT THE STRUGGLE!
CONSCIOUSNESS AND UNITY!
Chicano Mexicano Prison Project (CMPP)
cmpp@uniondelbarrio.org